


Taako's Mystery Enchantment

by Woodpeltneko (Woodpelt_the_pussycat)



Series: Trans Twins AU [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Calvinball with the rules of D&D magic, Lich Lup, Liches, M/M, Taako is an enigma and Kravitz is confused, Trans Character, Trans Taako (The Adventure Zone), Transition Magic, Transitioning, but he doesn't know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24354997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woodpelt_the_pussycat/pseuds/Woodpeltneko
Summary: Taako has an enchantment on him, and he has no idea what it does. He didn't even know it was there until Kravitz told him.Later, he remembers and tells Kravitz what it is.--two scenes I modified for the Trans Twins AU!
Relationships: Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Series: Trans Twins AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1758382
Comments: 1
Kudos: 75





	Taako's Mystery Enchantment

**Author's Note:**

> lots of the dialogue was pulled off the transcripts but I Hope You Like It Anyway

When Taako finally returns to their quarters, and hangs up his cloak, he feels really bad again. But when he turns, he has a visitor. Kravitz, in his stupidly handsome corporeal form, is sitting on his couch. He stands up and Taako swallows uncomfortably. 

“Well, we need to talk, don’t we? ‘Cause you boys… You’ve added quite a bit to your death count, haven’t you?” 

A week passes, and Taako invites Kravitz to talk with him about Refuge at the Bureau’s wine and pottery establishment, the Chug and Squeeze. He hadn’t quite realized that the particular class they were attending was a couples’ class, but he’s surprisingly okay with it if this  _ appointment _ turns in that direction. Taako gets there early, and he finds himself worrying that Kravitz might not show up but he gets there just before the class starts. 

Kravitz seems sort of confused at the location. “Well, Taako, this is uh… Taako, this is a pretty unconventional place to have an argument about sort of the fate of a whole, sort of small community, but… I do like wine, so…” he trails off for a moment.

Taako tilts his head curiously.

“I'm sorry, do you mind if I drop the accent, it's like— it's really really hard to keep it up, and when I'm not on the job it just feels weird doing it. Is that okay?” Kravitz asks, no longer cockney. 

“Yeah, of course!” 

“So why did you...? Why are we...? Why are we  _ here _ , Taako? Why can't we just go back to the dorm and finish our conversation?”

Taako lets out a nervous giggle. “Well, ironically because I thought it would get weird. But- that is… I don't know why I thought this would be a better option.”

It goes well. Taako explains his take on the whole ‘people dying more than once’ thing. There will always be outliers. As long as regular people follow the rules, it’ll be fine. 

Kravitz seems to understand, then hesitates. “The fact that I've visited you as much as I have means this line of work is just preposterously dangerous. So why are you doing this, Taako? Why aren't you doing a- a safer career?”

“Because I'm worried no one else will have me,” Taako says without thinking. He bites his lip.

“That… was a very honest answer,” Kravitz responds, and Taako scrambles to play it off in nonchalance. 

“Well, I mean, that's the truth. If I can't be honest at the Chug and Squeeze then I- frankly, my man, I don't know where I can. What else am I gonna do? As far as anybody else knows, my career as a chef is over. Nobody wants an adventurer who's got as little experience as I'd have, going in. I can't tell any— I can't put any of this in my resume, it'll look like scribbles! So that's out. I don't have a lot of job prospects on that front. So here I am.”

They have a lovely evening, if the resolution of a community’s multitude of deaths can be overlooked. They take their vases after the class, and Kravitz walks Taako back to his room. As they walk across the grassy quad, Kravitz turns to Taako.

“Taako, I want to know… Was this call for business or pleasure?”

Taako flushes, but tries to ignore it. “Yeah, I mean, a little bit of both. I– I, uh, for sure didn't want to be dragged to hell or whatever it is you do. Stored in the ghost house, or whatever, with Casper and the lot. Don't wanna do that. In the mirror, if I remember?”

Kravitz chuckles. “Yeah.”

“I am not interested in that. But I, like, also, I love your style. Not crazy about the sort of cold clamminess of the skin, but like, yeah, you know, it's been a while out here,” Taako says, trying not to lose his nerve. 

Kravitz smiles for a moment, before his demeanor suddenly shifts. His corporeal form melts into his skeletal reaper form, his scythe materializes in his hand and he steps back. “There's something here. There's something here, Taako—”

Taako doesn’t know what’s going on, so he blurts the first thing that comes to mind. “I feel it too.”

If a skeleton could blush, Taako would expect it to look like the face that Kravitz made in response to that. “No, not this, the— there's something here, it was in the Millers’ lab too, I could feel it. It's dead and it's powerful and it's extremely close. Are you harboring a dark spirit, Taako? Do you— do you have suspicions that you might be some sort of vessel?” Kravitz is clutching his scythe almost as if he’s afraid.

“Wha— I mean, maybe? I eat old dead dudes with my umbrella, is that a possibility, maybe?”

“I don’t— I don’t think that’s it.” Kravitz turns away and starts looking around for the source of this powerful presence. 

And then Taako feels a staticy feeling in his hand, like it fell asleep. He watches as the Umbrastaff raises up, pointing at Kravitz’s back. It clicks in his head just in time to yank the Umbrastaff into pointing skyward. A powerful Scorching Ray fires into the air, knocking Taako back onto his butt. 

Kravitz immediately turns to face Taako again. “What was that?”

“The Umbrastaff’s trying to kill you, man. It’s not me,” Taako tells him, still looking into the sky.

Kravitz frowns. “What?”

Taako gestures to it as he stands up. “The Umbrastaff, it acted on it’s own.”

“I don’t… Can I see it?”

Taako hands the Umbrastaff to Kravitz and he looks it over. “This isn't like a cursed item, maybe your umbrella's cursed and maybe you should get that checked out... this is an undead being, this is like a lich or something big and powerful, and it's- you're not a lich, are you, Taako?”

“No?” Taako says as Kravitz gives the Umbrastaff back to him. Somehow, despite the fact that the thing tried to kill his date, he feels safer holding it.

“I mean, you’re not, I would know…” Kravitz looks at Taako. “Does this have something to do with your enchantment?”

Taako blinks at him. “My… enchantment?”

There’s a pause. 

“You’re just making things up now,” Taako accuses.

“No, I— How do you not know you have an enchantment on you?”

Taako stares at Kravitz. 

Kravitz settles back into his corporeal form, still holding his scythe like a security blanket. “Taako, you’re…  _ covered _ in enchantment magic.”

“What…?” Taako does the only thing he can think to do. He casts Detect Magic. He sees Kravitz glowing brightly, the Umbrastaff only slightly dimmer. He looks down at himself, and sure enough, he’s glowing noticeably. 

Kravitz looks at Taako with clear concern. “How did you not know this? It’s been there since we met, and I can only assume before.”

Taako frowns and casts Dispel Magic on himself. The glowing of magic disappears from his vision. “Is… is it gone?”

“No, Taako, it’s still there,” Kravitz tells him. “It isn’t any spell I recognize, I… I don’t know what this is.”

Taako stands in front of Kravitz silently for a long moment.

“I’m sorry to worry you,” Kravitz apologizes. “I've had a very- I've had a lovely evening, do you think I'll be hearing from you again any time soon?”

Taako snaps back to attention. “Oh, yeah! I mean, as long as I don’t…” His ears droop. “You know, die. Again.”

“Well, even so, we have- we have ways of dealing with that,” Kravitz says, smiling gently. 

“Well, yeah, that's pretty much the best excuse I ever have, so I think you'll definitely be seeing me again, for sure!” Taako says, a little lighter. 

“Well, if that’s what it comes to, hopefully not too soon. Goodbye, Taako.”

* * *

“Holy shit, are you okay!?” Lup shouts from somewhere behind him.

“Yeah, I’m pretty fucking great!” he shouts back before he kneels down in front of the glass. 

It’s instant. The arcane energy discharges, and there’s hardly a second between the moment he touches it to the moment it’s all sapphire. The reaction is just as quick. The grass starts to regain its color, and all across the Prime Material Plane, heat becomes hotter, light shines brighter, and divine energy shoots through the sky as the planes reconnect. From the sapphire, large figures of spectral white light grow, and shape the town that was destroyed just over a year ago. And then, in the center of town, near the well that had sheltered Taako and his companions a year ago, is Kravitz.

Kravitz looks up, instantly meeting Taako’s gaze. “How… How did you do that?”

Taako runs to him and kisses him. It’s so nice. He’s even warm, somehow. 

“Okay, forget about how,” Taako says, pulling back just enough to talk. “Long story short, I was rad, natch.”

“I— Taako, I was trying to get out to get a message to you. I thought— I thought you were gone. I thought everything was gone,” Kravitz tells him, still in awe.

Taako freezes. “I… You should know…” he drops the glamor spell that he had been maintaining since Wonderland. “I just wanted to be honest, I didn’t want to, like, catfish you or anything. This is what I look like now, I had a- a run in, and I thought you should know, just in case you… this changes anything for you.”

Kravitz pauses. “Taako, I… I was already crazy about you  _ before _ some weird light told me a story about your one hundred year journey through existence where you were fighting for a century to save the world. I love you, Taako, and at this point, nothing’s going to change that.”

Taako feels himself flush. “That was actually a test, your face is a skull half the time, I just wanted to— Yeah, okay, no fucking kidding.”

Kravitz smiles, hugging him. 

From behind them, there’s an explosion, and they hear Lucas cry out for his lab. They contemplate this for a moment before Lup shouts from nearby.

“Uh, we have a bigger problem!” She points. 

One of the Judges towers nearby, just a few footfalls away from them. 

“I don’t know how to kill that!” Lup yells.

Kravitz steps forward. “I think I know some people who can help. Remember those wayward souls I’ve been imprisoning? Well uh, I’m giving them some time off for good behavior.”

Taako grins back at him. 

Hundreds of souls pour out of the sapphire, massing together to form one amalgam. Legion is back, and this time they’re on the same side. It leaps toward the Judge, sending the massive shadow stumbling backwards. 

Kravitz looks at Taako again. “I need to keep an eye on them, Taako, and I need to shepherd this world’s dead but it’s… it’s so fuckin’ good to see your face again. When I was over there, I just, I thought about you constantly.”

Taako kisses him again. “Um, I mean me too pretty much, except the world’s ending. So kind of like half and half, but still, free thought time was definitely devoted your way. We will hook up after this, no doubt. Let’s go ahead and save... everybody, pretty much, and then we’ll move on to that. Does that sound good to you?”

Kravitz smiles, kisses him on the forehead, and moves to leave. 

“Oh, shit, one more thing! Actually, two things!” 

Kravitz turns back, partway through shifting into his reaper form. 

“One, this is my sister.” Taako points to Lup.

“Sup, ghost rider!” Lup waves, Barry walking over to greet Kravitz as well.

Kravitz waves back and leans over to whisper to Taako. “You… know we’re going to have to talk about the fact that she’s a lich, right?”

“I figured,” Taako responds. “And the other thing, did you catch the enchantment thing in the broadcast from the Voidfish?”

Kravitz tilts his head curiously. 

“The enchantment is the trans-body-swap thing I’ve got going, can’t reverse it ‘cause the other body doesn’t exist right now!” Taako grins, gesturing to Lup again. 

“I see,” Kravitz responds. “That’s a very interesting spell, I’m glad you found a way to be happy with your body.”

Taako smiles softly. “Yeah, me too.”

“I’ll see you soon, Taako.”

And he flies off, following Legion into the battle.


End file.
